Indiana Hospital Bleeding Money Because of Medicaid Patients

More information is starting to seep in showing the effects of how the growing Medicaid crowd is affecting hospitals. This will force Indiana to deal with growing Medicaid costs itself and possibly affect state of Indiana debt. On top of that, government is severely cutting back on payments to these hospitals. Now these facilities are grappling with “controlling” costs.

Here’s a perfect example out of Jay County Indiana(Read full story here)

The overall financial picture continues to contain bad news for Jay County Hospital. But there was a little bit of positive news Wednesday.

CEO Dave Hyatt reported to Jay County Hospital Board on Wednesday that the facility has lost $3.92 million through the first five months of fiscal 2017.

He then reported that the hospital received $1.7 million in Disproportionate Share Hospital (DSH) funds, which go to facilities that see a high level of Medicare and Medicaid patients. About $800,000 of that is to be applied to budget year 2016, with the rest going to 2017.

Still, the overall financial pattern continues to be dire as the hospital lost $920,227 in February. It has been in the red by at least half a million dollars each month so far in fiscal 2017.

Part of that problem comes from the hospital’s high level of Medicare and Medicaid patients because those programs do not fully reimburse what is billed. Reimbursements from Medicare and Medicaid are set by the federal government.

Hyatt pointed out that through February 2016 it had billed $43.3 million and brought in revenue of $18.02 million, a rate of 41.6 percent. This year, it has billed more — $45.06 million — but brought in just $13.3 million, a rate of 29.5 percent.